Chapter Twenty-Two
The next morning
Caesar
“We should get up,” I murmur.
“Mmmmmm.” Maddie peels herself away from me, stretches and yawns, then flops back again onto the pillows. “It’s so warm in here.”
The morning sun is streaming through the windows, coating the bed with thick, buttery rays. Normally, I’m up and in the shower by seven, but today it’s close to eight a.m. and we’re still tangled in the duvet.
I reach for the remote control and flick on the air con, then roll back onto my side facing her, head propped on a hand.
She looks up at me and smiles. Her galaxy hair is spread over the pillow. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes glow.
“So much for ‘just going for dinner’ and ‘I’m going to take my time,’” she teases.
“We did go to dinner.”
“Barely. I didn’t even have a dessert.”
“I distinctly remember sampling something sweet.”
She snorts and pushes me, and I chuckle.
“I really should get up,” she says, lifting her arms above her head. “I’ve got tons to do. There’s a meeting at ten to talk about the new division.”
“They’re going to come down heavy on you.” I rest my fingers on her forehead and then trail them over her nose, her chin, and down her neck. “They don’t want you at the helm. They’ll try to make sure you’re only a figurehead.”
“They can kiss my ass,” she says.
That makes me laugh. “Seriously, though, you’re not going to have an easy ride.”
“If I know I have the support of you, Marcus, and Edward, I can handle my family.”
“Oh, you definitely have my support.” I cup her breast and lift it a little, and she giggles. “Speaking of which,” I add, “is it my imagination or have these grown?”
“Yeah, I’ve gone up a cup size.”
“Wow. I love this baby already.”
She laughs, and her eyes shine. “That’s a nice thing to say, even if it was a reference to my boobs.”
“It wasn’t just a reference to your boobs.” I slide my hand down, pushing the duvet with it to expose her lower body, and rest my hand on her stomach. “Cupcake and her petit four.”
She giggles, and I smile.
Last night, we didn’t talk much about the pregnancy.
We started by discussing the new division and how excited we were to get stuck into the system integration before, inevitably, the conversation turned to Blackridge and what happened there.
I’d heard of pregnant women glowing and never understood what it meant before, but last night Maddie was radiant, lit with happiness and excitement.
I was spellbound. When she started flirting with me, I was unable to resist, and I don’t think either of us were surprised when we ended up in bed.
I don’t want the baby to be the reason we get together.
I don’t think either of us would like the idea of getting married just to make it legal or respectable.
I fully intended to court her slowly, so we could explore our relationship and make sure of our feelings for one another before we made any kind of commitment, and before bringing the baby into the equation.
But lying there, with her belly warm from the sun, it’s impossible not to think about the fact that we’ve made a whole other person together.
I trace a finger over the place where our baby is growing.
It will still be tucked behind her pubic bone, so it’s too early for her to show, but it won’t be long before she’ll have a small bump.
“It’s about the size of a lime now,” she says. “We’re working through the whole fruit bowl.”
I chuckle, then bend forward and kiss her belly, right over where the baby would be. At that moment, a thought explodes in my head, as if someone has stuffed a hand grenade in my ear.
She’s pregnant with my baby. My heir. It’s mine.
I don’t think I fully believed it until now. With some shock, it occurs to me that I trust her.
It’s only now that I understand how trust works. It can’t be evaluated scientifically. It can’t be touched, weighed, or examined under a microscope. It’s abstract, like faith, hope, and love. All of them make you vulnerable. All of them require a leap.
What I didn’t realize, however, is that the acceptance of trust unlocks a whole other world. Putting your heart into someone else’s hands, and having them do the same to you, is scary, but it’s also liberating and kind of beautiful.
I look up at her. She’s watching me kiss her belly, a small smile on her lips, and she strokes my hair tenderly. “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you look happy,” she says.
“I am happy,” I say, with some surprise. I kiss her belly again. “I was worried about you thinking I was only interested in a relationship because of the baby. But I just realized something.”
“What?”
“I’m in love with you.”
Her face lights with that radiant happiness that made me weak at the knees last night. “Really? Because I… I’m in love with you, too.”
“I know it’s early days, though. I’m reserved and cynical, and I’m not an easy man to love.”
“I think you’re much easier to love than you think,” she says softly. “Your baby loves you unconditionally already.” She smiles.
That thought brings a wave of emotion washing over me.
To cover it, I kiss her belly a few more times, thinking about the soul inside her, Little Raspberry, who we’ll get to meet in just over six months’ time.
I already love it unconditionally, too, and I’m prepared to protect him or her with my life.
I love Maddie. There isn’t any doubt in my mind. I’ll wait, because I want her to be sure, but I fully intend to marry the girl, to look after her, and to have many more babies with her, hopefully until we have our own rugby team.
Slowly, I kiss back up her body, between her breasts, until I’m lying beside her.
I pull her into my arms and wrap them around her.
And then we kiss for a long, long time, beneath the warm, yellow blanket of early sun while, for the first time in my life, I give up trying to control everything and just trust the future will be bright.